Derwent Chromaflow Colored Pencil Review & Swatch Chart

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You can check out my video review of the Derwent Chromaflow Coloring Pencils 150 set above.

If you want to jump ahead, you can click on the relevant chapter link below

Derwent Chromaflow Coloring Pencils – Features

Derwent Chromaflow coloring pencils are available in a number of sets in a tin including 150, 72, 48, 36 ,and 12. I am reviewing the 150 set
The pencils are wax based, feature a 3.5 mm core
Each pencil has a black barrel with the name and number of the pencil in gold small typeface. The end cap is colored to closely represent the pigment of the pencil
Derwent has used the Blue Wool lightfast test on the pencils with most pencils having a good lightfast rating
You can purchase replacement pencils as open stock at selected outlets

Swatch

I swatched the Derwent Chromaflow coloring pencils on both normal copy paper and Neenah Cardstock.

The Neenah cardstock required multiple layers of color to ensure the tooth was flattened. The copy paper being smooth was easy to color on and surprisingly could also take multiple layers.

The colors were a lot more vibrant on the copy paper compared to the Neenah Cardstock in my opinion (probably due to the amount of layering required to get the maximum pigment)

You can download my free Derwent Chromaflow Coloring Pencil Swatch (150) chart here in 2 formats – blank for you to color in yourself and my scanned colored copy.

Testing in Coloring Books

I tested the Derwent Chromaflow Coloring Pencils in a variety of coloring books to test the various types of paper.

The pencils performed very well on all types of paper with no pencil dust/pencil bloom or extreme waxiness.

All of the papers could take multiple layers of color with the Japanese book having the toothiest paper and requiring multiple layers of paper. The KDP paper could take multiple layers of color as well. The easiest paper to use, for me was the smooth Johanna Basford paper which could also take multiple layers.

Black Paper

I tested the pencils on the black embossed Spectrum Noir pad. I was expecting that this would produce a really vibrant result and contrast with the paper. That did not happen and the finished test was very disappointing.

Blender Pencil

My Caran d’Ache blender pencil was used to blend the layers together on the test pages from the coloring books and the black paper. The blender pencil blended very well on all the coloring books tested however, it actually removed the pencil from the black paper.

Erasing

I used both my sand eraser and white eraser to see how easy it was to remove color from the coloring books. Both erasers performed well on all the coloring books removing color easily without damage to the papers.

Sharpening

Using my M and R pencil sharpener I found that the pencils easily sharpened to a point. The point was maintained without crumbling or breaking.

Derwent Chromaflow Coloring Pencils – Summary

Pros	Cons
large selection of vibrant colours	selection of reds/greys and browns is small compared to othe brands
can be used with pencils from the Derwent range and other wax based pencils like Prismacolor pencils	pencil core is smaller so theoretically may be used faster than comparable Prismacolors
no pencil dust/pencil bloom when layering from my tests	depending where you live, could be more expensive than similar brands as they are UK based
open stock for replacement pencils	did not have the vibrancy expected when using on black paper